07 December, 2009

The preproduction phase most closely mirrors that of the film industry; it is at this stage that the story is developed and honed, the look of the project is fleshed out using art and pre visualization techniques (like storyboarding), and the budget and schedule are defined for the coming production cycle. Although this is called “preproduction” in the film industry as well, in the game industry, preproduction also includes defining all the technical requirements of the game (such as design, art, and features), Prioritizing features and specifying constraints (usually influenced by the budget and schedule), and creating a basic design document. These steps constitute the very roadmap that the production team will follow during the many months of development. If you have not yet developed a prototype of the game, this is also done during preproduction. Though the finished prototype will be a playable level of the game, which can begin as simply as mapping out the game idea on paper. Once the prototype is honed to a coherent representation of the game concept, it is developed into an actual demo.